Liverpool FC Forum

[Penguins]

Before people counter no3 with - we have no money.

Thats a tiresome argument. If you look at the money Chelsea and Man City have spent, which is a ridiculous amount, that hasnt made them world beaters, it has put them on the same level as the clubs already at the top. Also, having money doesnt guarantee success. For the money spent by Chelsea they have gone through quite a few managers, and I have no doubt Man City will go through the same thing. Also Man United, success has got them there money but again, the costly mistakes at that club is outrageous. £30 mill on berbatov has proved to be a disaster. Also take into account the massive amount spent on other flops there. Usually the biggest successes are those that cost next to nothing compared to others. Take Alonso, we made a nice profit on him.

So the having no money argument doesnt wash with me. Rafa has had money, he has just spent ludicrous amounts on players that we all know are simply not worth it. Keane for instance, Aquilani may turn out to be a good player but again, over priced and also Johnson. Those who say we only paid £8m for him as portsmouth owed us £9m, another argument that doesnt wash with me. They owed us which means that money was ours. It went towards Johnson. Over priced. So in all fairness, yes rafa has had the money, not as much as those above us, but certainly more than those below.

Well, if you look at it then, when was the last time a team won a trophy that didn't spend on transfer and wages?`
I am not talking about a honorably 2nd place or semi-final, but actually winning.

You could argue Portsmouth that won the FA cup but the owner was quoted in saying Redknapp drove the club into financial ruin or something similar to that effect.

Arsenal has won jack **** in 5 years!
Manure and Chelski has split the titles these past 6 years, and Manure has won the CL, while Barca sure are spending loads of cash also.


And lakes, ffs saying he bought 59 players to the club is totally irrelevant as half of those are reserve and youth players that cost next to nothing. Once again you expect miracles where cheap buys become top class players.
For all Arsenal´s famous youth they have 1 FA cup in the past 6 years and we have won one CL title and 1 FA cup.

If you look at the real 1st team buys he hasn't been that awful. Sure Keane and Dossena were awful, but what a bargain wasn't Torres, Reina and Alonso. He got them before they were in the world class category for around 36 million. Alonso got us 30, Reina is propably worth 25 and Torres 60-70. That is around 120 million on a 36 million outlay.

And about Keane which is somehow omitted from all discussion. Yeah, he was a poor buy, but WHERE THE F***
DID THE MONEY GO WHEN WE SOLD HIM??
He salvaged most of the outlay, but then he wasn't allowed to spend the Keane money.

Even if Pompey owned us money when were we going to get them??
They went into administration and god knows when those 8 million would be available. And what do you mean Johnson was overpriced?
English international and City and Chelski both had offers which matched ours.


Sure, Rafa is overly cautious and he is not the type of manager that is going to overachive unless he has the quality of players available. If he is allowed to get his 1st choice targets and is allowed to spend close to what Manure and Chelski are, then I am positive there would be results.
Which manager out there will take on the club with no money, make the team overachieve and play to our absolute strenght? And will accept a not so high wage.
I see none.

[Dundalk]

The latest from Rafas agent


"The intention of Benitez is to fulfil the contract that he has with Liverpool until 2014 but it's true that the club is subject to fluctuations in their financial situation," said the Spaniard's agent.

"They could influence the future of the club and therefore Benitez as well.

"The Chinese have an interest because they have called Rafa and told him that their condition for buying the club is that he continues as coach."

Quilon said Benitez remained a potential candidate for some of the top jobs in Europe but that there had been no discussion about him leaving Liverpool.

"For now (Real) Madrid have not made a move to sign him," he told Spanish newspaper AS.

[account deleted by request]

  his agent

[Owzat]

3. Not signing a back up striker in Jan when we so clearly and desperately needed one and Torres's injury record was questionable to put it mild ?

Before people counter no3 with - we have no money.
We signed Maxi - who will not be on pennies.

Maybe we could make more effort in the bosman transfer market, I know Owen is now injured but people who say "look he's injured" being wise after the event aren't wise at all. He'd have been on big wages sure, but which signing worth making isn't? I'm using Owen as an example, but there are other players who move for no fee and we seem disinterested unless they play abroad.

How does the "no money" argument work when we pay £3m for a back-up keeper when several teams signed keepers on bosmans? Taylor I think moved on a free and didn't Ross Turnbull? Maybe not quality keepers, but for nothing would they be any worse at sitting and watching Reina keep goal than £3m Cavalieri? We must have saved a fortune in the fitness and medical teams when Kewell left, might do too when Aurelio does. What odds he joins wherever Kewell is?

[7_Kewell]

He wasted 38m last summer on a full back and a crock. He could have bought any full back for a couple of million (no world beater required) and spent 35m on a world class forward e.g. Tevez to play beside Torres (With SG and Masch in the middle) and to score our goals during Torres's his many injuries.

Only SG and Torres score goals regularly and Torres is often injured and SG getting more injury prone with the years.

Did Benitez not even google Aqualini's fitness before he spent a fortune on him? Why spend the balance on a full back leaving us with only one (injury prone) forward who can actually score.

The man is incompetant and should be fired - I am sickened the owners don't have a clause saying they can fire him if he fails to qualify for the CL.

7th place is a disgrace and he should be ashamed, do the honourable thing and quit, but these types never do, he'll hang on , just like Fred the shred for a massive payoff for being useless. 

Give me examples of full backs we could have aqquired for 'a few mil'. How often have we let our first target slip? So id love to hear some names Nial.

And as for spending 35Mil on a world class forward what if that player turned out to be a crock or a flop? The lingo would then be 'Rafa wasted 35Mil on a crock striker, we could have picked up a decent one for 15Mil'.

It's too easy to judge on highnsight. Maybe he was advised otherwise on Aquilani that his injury was fixed? Wasn't there talk at the time that he was mistreated by doctors in Rome? I don't know what goes on behind the doors at Melwood and neither do you so quit with the Nostradamus footy .

I'm sorry Niall but your seriously deluding yourself if you think Rafa had the money to pay for Tevez's wages . We were at the begining of the season Fifth behind Chelsea, man city, arsenal and man u in highest wages league . With H+G deciding that wages were part of the tranfer kitty where were we getting the money from for Tevez . Money constraints dictated our transfers for four window's in a row now. We have not and cannot competed at the top end of the transfer market for a couple of season's .

This makes the fact Rafa has wasted 40 over the last 2 seasons all the more worse.

[stmichael]

everyone on here wanted Johnson.. and we payed the Market price for an English player.. the going rate. If we ahd lost ou there then there would have been further moans re: basement shopping.

he was overpriced because all the clueless muppets on sky said so don't you know?

people whinged about our fullbacks not being good enough going forward and that being one of our weakest areas last season (even though i liked arbeloa). so we bring in johnson and the same people then moan that he was overpriced, even though he's had 5 assists. and don't even get me started on this "he can't defend" nonsense (yet another issue completely blown out of proportion by the national media).

seriously rafa can't win at times. he even gets criticised for the things he has done right.

[GRAHAM01]

seriously rafa can't win at times. he even gets criticised for the things he has done right.

nail on head 

[Ben Patrick]

everyone on here wanted Johnson.. and we payed the Market price for an English player.. the going rate. If we ahd lost ou there then there would have been further moans re: basement shopping.

he was overpriced because all the clueless muppets on sky said so don't you know?

people whinged about our fullbacks not being good enough going forward and that being one of our weakest areas last season (even though i liked arbeloa). so we bring in johnson and the same people then moan that he was overpriced, even though he's had 5 assists. and don't even get me started on this "he can't defend" nonsense (yet another issue completely blown out of proportion by the national media).

seriously rafa can't win at times. he even gets criticised for the things he has done right.

I actually agree on the Johnson signing.
I was made up when we signed him and he is not as poor defensively as is made out.
It is a signing i wanted and i havent changed my mind on that one bit.

But the Aquilani one was a massive howler.
None of this he was signed for 5 years please. Rafa doesnt fancy him, he is not selected for any of the games of importance.
And the fact that he replaced a key player in Alonso makes it even more glaring.

[7_Kewell]

everyone on here wanted Johnson.. and we payed the Market price for an English player.. the going rate. If we ahd lost ou there then there would have been further moans re: basement shopping.

he was overpriced because all the clueless muppets on sky said so don't you know?

people whinged about our fullbacks not being good enough going forward and that being one of our weakest areas last season (even though i liked arbeloa). so we bring in johnson and the same people then moan that he was overpriced, even though he's had 5 assists. and don't even get me started on this "he can't defend" nonsense (yet another issue completely blown out of proportion by the national media).

seriously rafa can't win at times. he even gets criticised for the things he has done right.

I actually agree on the Johnson signing.
I was made up when we signed him and he is not as poor defensively as is made out.
It is a signing i wanted and i havent changed my mind on that one bit.

But the Aquilani one was a massive howler.
None of this he was signed for 5 years please. Rafa doesnt fancy him, he is not selected for any of the games of importance.
And the fact that he replaced a key player in Alonso makes it even more glaring.

Spot on. Just like Keane a year before, we have wasted a huge wad of precious cash on a olayer our manager doesn't want. Only this time rafa can't pretend its all parrys fault

[Leonmc0708]

The Johnson singing - the thing people glaringly miss is we where owed circa £9m from Pompey for Crouch.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing - but maybe we would still be waiting for that £9m ? Did the deal makers at LFC know this at the time and see it as the best way to recoup this money ? who knows ?

However - net spend of £9m on the guy is a fair figure for me.

Again - Aquilani - cant remember the EXACT figures but down payment was a fraction of the amount touted - with the rest on appearences over the contract. Was this seen as the best option with what little money we had available at the time - probably. Will this work out over the course - maybe. Is he a roaring success right now - definetly not - BUT I have seen enough in him, both before the signing and in his time here to know he is defo worth a punt.

People, (fans) forget at times, that we are flat broke. Like not got a pot to pi.ss in - and whoever is doing the deals, Rafa, the board or a mix of both are working under HUGe restricions on these singings.

Again, not sure on the exact figure, but last close season, nett spend (out after sales in was less than a million. whichever way you dress that up and whoevers door you lay the blame on, thats not enough for a team seemingly pipped last year at the title post to make up the required ground. Add to that the extravagance of the likes of City, Spurs et all in the transfer market and this season we are lucky to see anything that even masquerades as progress.

[account deleted by request]

The Johnson singing - the thing people glaringly miss is we where owed circa £9m from Pompey for Crouch.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing - but maybe we would still be waiting for that £9m ? Did the deal makers at LFC know this at the time and see it as the best way to recoup this money ? who knows ?

However - net spend of £9m on the guy is a fair figure for me.

Again - Aquilani - cant remember the EXACT figures but down payment was a fraction of the amount touted - with the rest on appearences over the contract. Was this seen as the best option with what little money we had available at the time - probably. Will this work out over the course - maybe. Is he a roaring success right now - definetly not - BUT I have seen enough in him, both before the signing and in his time here to know he is defo worth a punt.

People, (fans) forget at times, that we are flat broke. Like not got a pot to pi.ss in - and whoever is doing the deals, Rafa, the board or a mix of both are working under HUGe restricions on these singings.

Again, not sure on the exact figure, but last close season, nett spend (out after sales in was less than a million. whichever way you dress that up and whoevers door you lay the blame on, thats not enough for a team seemingly pipped last year at the title post to make up the required ground. Add to that the extravagance of the likes of City, Spurs et all in the transfer market and this season we are lucky to see anything that even masquerades as progress.

The Johnson singing - the thing people glaringly miss is we where owed circa £9m from Pompey for Crouch.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing - but maybe we would still be waiting for that £9m ? Did the deal makers at LFC know this at the time and see it as the best way to recoup this money ? who knows ?

I am pretty sure that Chelsea and another club where after him as well as us mate. If we hadn't bought him maybe we could have still got our £9million from his sale to Chelsea?

I thought at the time we paid over the odds for Johnson, maybe we did, but I think he is a good player, my only doubt is whether the money would have been better spent on a striker.

Aquilani - I still have high hopes he will be a great success, whether we should really have bought an injured player, in another question.

Good to see you back posting anyway Leon

[lakes10]

not going to into much today and you all know why.
but i dont like the sound of the chineas money.

[Joeblackisachimp]

Hi All.

I think it is a bit unfair on the yanks to let them take all of the blame. After all, we are in a global recession, trying to fund a new stadium, banks not lending etc etc.

Rafa has to take some of the flak (65% at least). Say you do give him 50m in the summer, he would go out and buy a load of full backs and holding midfielders!

IMO there is No issue of money, look what Rafa has spent over the past six seasons (prob 150 Million) whether funded by sale of existing players or cash from the board, Rafa has had the cash and not built a strong squad.

I don't think it is hicks and Gillette's fault directly that we don't have Sissoko, Bellamy, Crouch, Keane etc, but instead have Lucas, El Zahar, N'gog, Aquilani and other sub standard players. did the board not fund the 20m asking price for Aqua?? But rafa chose the player. wasted money.
or that Lucas plays over babel, or Kuyt plays out of position?

I like Rafa, nice man, nice smile. But so is my great grandad!

Not getting 4th is disastorous, messing up next season, and someone should pay.

I personally think Rafa has taken us as far as he can.

next up...........Owen Coyle 

[Reg]

not going to into much today and you all know why.
but i dont like the sound of the chineas money.

Too big a cultural difference anyway mate.

[Maickito]

I do feel we have a great starting 11 on paper and on their given day they can spank anyway- Im just very worried that Benitez may have lost the dressing room - the results in the league kinda indicate this.........would I love to see Benitez turn it around - of course- 
I do feel though his defensive mindset ( and i don't mean on the pitch or anything to do with football ) doesnt lend favourably towards his image, he is very touchy-  honesty is what we need now ------ if he came out with a statement like - everyone from the owners, management and players has f$$ked up this season -  stay with us - we are on course etc - 1 year without champs league football might be good for us re: winning a title ---------- then a lot of pi-s-sed fans like me would say fair enough - lets do it???

But at the moment the kind of stuff he is coming out with i.e. we controlled the game, we were unlucky, we created a lot of chances------that kind of nonsense infuriates fans